Spotlight that Burns
by AgentT
Summary: Cordelia, Angel, Wesley, and an old friend battle a demon, but things are not as they seem when Wolfram & Hart are involved


"Spotlight that Burns" 

Nights were always like this. Nothing to do, nothing to eat, nothing to watch. At least that's the way it was now. 

"I'm telling you, I am perfect for the part!" Cordelia screamed into the phone. "What do you mean, he wants a blonde?!" The message back was muffled anger. Cordelia groaned and slammed the phone down. She sat down on her couch and started to eat her bowl of cereal. It seemed like the only thing she could afford was processed wood. "I'm all right. I can be successful. I just have to be determined, I have to be--" The phone rang. "Hello?" She said. "Hello? Is this Cordelia Chase?" The other end asked. Cordelia put her bowl down. "Yes, who is this?" "My name is Edward Burton, we are from the talent firm of Bellman and Shine. We've heard a lot about you and we were wondering whether you would consider letting us represent you." "THE Bellman and Shine?" Cordelia practically shrieked into the phone. She settled down and tried to act more mature. "Let's set up an appointment and talk." "Great. We'll be in touch." The voice said and hung up. Cordelia screamed and ran into her room. She grabbed her purse and ran out the door, thinking of shoes and new outfits. 

"Did she buy it?" A man in a suit asked. "Of course. Star struck, wants to be the next Sarah Michelle Geller, who wouldn't want to be represented by….the best talent agency in the city…" Another man said, looking at his phone. "Good." The first man said and turned to leave. "Oh, by the way. I called to have some papers filed, Ms. Chase will want to have some bonuses…" 

"Can you believe it?" Cordy shrieked. Angel nodded in his usual manner. "It's great. You should celebrate." Angel grabbed her jacket and practically shoved her out the door. Cordy, being….well, Cordy, noticed this. "Why are you in such a hurry to get me out the door?" She asked, pushing back. "Nothing." He said, not looking at her. "Nothing huh? Well, then you won't mind that I stay, since I do work here." She slammed the door and threw her coat down and sat behind the desk. Angel was speechless. "Coast is clear, we are-" A voice said. Cordelia turned around. She went white. 

"Oh….coast isn't so clear." "Um, hi." Cordelia said softly. Angel looked back and forth between them uncomfortably. Cordelia turned to Angel. "Maybe I should go." She smiled tightly and picked up her jacket. "Cordelia." Angel said…and stopped. She was right. There wasn't a need to keep her there. It would just cause trouble. As she left, Angel looked back at the guest. "Well, you know, that was a big mess on your part." He looked down. "I know. I shouldn't have been out so soon." "So what's up?" Angel crossed his arms and sat down. "What else? Trouble." He crossed the room and poured some coffee. "A demon called Ninxe has crossed over from some other parallel. I don't know all the details but, uh, it's bad. And I'm messenger boy." "It's good. But why me?" Angel asked. "Ninxe is headed up this way. He needs to feed on 8 human livers before he can return back to his parallel. That's the way he works. Every 50 years he goes into our parallel and sucks some liver and onions. Then he goes home. He only got 2 so far before we found out. He's going to arrive soon." Angel shifted in his seat. "Well, then. Let's get to work." 

The night was strangely clear, free of any smog that would usually cover the city. The air was warm, but not hot. A mild breeze blew discarded flyers and papers around. Angel drove amongst the busy traffic. His car shone bright against the lights and neon signs. He made a turn and stopped the car in front of a dark dive. He could hear the blaring music from outside. Across the street, he spotted a few men in a dark sedan. Cops, he knew. He parked across the street, not too far from the cops, and made his way to the dive. He was about to enter when he heard a muffled scream. He glanced back at the undercover cops, paging through their magazines and drinking their coffee. Angel sighed and went toward the back alley. 

"Can you believe it?" Cordelia said. She was at the mall, speaking into her cell phone. "Aura, I'm going to be represented by Bellman and Shine, THE elite talent agency. Well, duh, yeah I'm with D. Johnson now, but Bellman and Shine will have to beg and spring some pretty good extras to get me." In her left hand she balanced a shopping bag as well as her purse, and in her right hand she held her phone. "Of course. Negotiation is always the way to go. Hello? Are you brain dead? Of course I'm going to audition for the new DiCaprio. Even Heather Graham had to go through call backs to get the Austin Powers job." She said. "What? Oh, hold on. I just found these bitchin' D&G boots. They're on sale, 20% off." "Yeah. Sure. We'll talk later." Cordelia hung up and stared into the window. She bit her bottom lip and continued on. She stared at her purse and sighed. She perked up at the thought of Bellman and Shine. "Young, beautiful, soon to be famous." She encouraged herself. 

Angel was in a situation he never wanted to be in. He had fought vampires, demons, assassins, even lawyers. None of that prepared him for this… "So where do you live?" A petite blonde woman asked. Cradled in her left hand was a drink. Her right hand was grasping Angel's jacket. "Uh…close." He said absently, looking around. "Close, huh?" She said. She took a sip of her drink. "Maybe you can show me around." Angel looked back at her. "Excuse me." He said, moving toward the excuse for a bathroom. The blonde stared after the dark stranger and pouted. Angel went into the bathroom and blocked the door with a chair. After making sure the door was secure, he opened the back window and peered out. A familiar face was sitting in his car, looking very nervous indeed. He slipped out and landed in a puddle of rain. He grimaced and then ignored it. "So this is where you hang out." He said, seeing Angel walk to the car. "Let's get out of here." He said, starting the car. Fifteen minutes later they were standing in an old dilapidated building. "Liver boy has a no-window motif. Makes good for killing without witnesses." "It's a hang out spot for local demons. They've disappeared one by one. No one says anything because they're demons." Angel whispered. 

"Guess their moms don't send fruit baskets." They walked around the building, muddy wet trash under their feet. Angel stopped and stooped down to glance at something sticking to his shoe. He hesitated before reaching his finger down and scooping some of the guck up. "What is that? It smells like a dead animal." Angel looked up grimly. "Or a demon." "A-a dead demon?" Angel nodded slightly. He sniffed it. It was an automatic mistake, the rancid fumes of the demon entrails were acidic, it made them cough. Angel wiped the guck off his fingers with a piece of somewhat less messy paper. He dropped it and went on. "Wait a minute." He picked up the paper and Angel stopped in his tracks. "What?" Angel asked. "Look at this." Angel moved back beside him and looked at the paper. Despite the lack of good light, he could make out a few words. "It's an ad. For Bellman and Shine talent?" "Isn't that the talent agency that Cordelia had an appointment with?" Angel asked. They looked at each other and without a word, they bolted for the door. Before they could reach it, however, a lumbering figure knocked both of them off their feet. Angel grimaced as he landed on a jagged piece of plywood. "Ninxe?" He asked. Angel shook his head. "Wrong demon." And he kicked the demon as it tried to snap his neck. Angel lifted a piece of wood and slammed it into the demon. It growled in pain and Angel saw blood. Thick blue-green blood. He had seen it before. He looked down at the flyer that had been dropped. It was the same blood. The same rancid smell. "Get out of here." Angel said, and made his way to the door. Before leaving, Angel saw a long metal rod that stuck out of a hole in the wall. He breathed in and pulled with all his might. Without the pol in the wall, the wall came tumbling down and both Angel and the demon were hidden under the rubble. 

Cordelia was at home when a smell penetrated her cool interior. "Ewwww! Get out of my house!" She shrieked. "Hey, sorry, but I don't have time to care about how the carpet smells, when there's an Angel buried under a ton of bricks." "What?" Cordelia stopped. He was dank and dirty, and boy did he reek. "The old warehouse, we were tracking the demon and we met something else instead. And Angel buried it under a ton of bricks but hey, he got too into sticking around and watching it." "Let's go then." Cordelia sighed and wondered how she had gotten into this in the first place. She stopped and went into her room. Five minutes later she emerged in generic looking jeans and a tank top. "I'm not going to trash my hundred dollar outfit." She said, and grabbed a similarly generic looking jacket. "Call me demon killer unplugged." "Yes I'm trying to locate a Ninxe demon." Wesley breathed into the phone. He glanced up at the clock and his talking became faster. "I'm looking for a Ninxe demon. Tall, greenish, very ugly." "Oh yeah, that's just about 99% of all demons." Cordelia muttered. "Way to narrow the field down." "Where?" Wesley began scribbling on a notepad. "Yes. 15 Moreno Drive. All right, thank you." He hung up and gave the paper to Cordelia. "According to this fellow, our demon is behind a Wendy's restaurant on Moreno Drive." "Wendy's? Well, now we know what those bacon cheeseburgers are made of." He said and paused. "Wait, we've got to go get Angel." "Since when have you been so concerned?" Cordelia said to him. 'Since there was a lot of wood in that place no matter how much we disagree I'm no rogue demon hunter." He looked at Wesley, who looked off sheepishly. "What's with the rogue demon stuff?" Cordelia frowned. Ok, let's get Angel and then we'll go after the nice liver eating ugly." Angel coughed and lifted himself off a pile of bricks. His side hurt and he was bleeding. There was so much blood he didn't even know where his wound was. He looked up and a face looked down back at him. Tow arms roughly jerked him up to his feet and carried him out. He slipped into unconsciousness as he was put into a truck. 

"Angel?" Cordelia whispered. Her left hand held a large flashlight while her right hand held a weapon. Wesley was behind her with his axe. "I don't see anything." He muttered, and jumped in surprise. He let out a yelp. Everyone yelped too and turned to look at Wesley. "Rat. No big deal." He said. "Why I ever suggested looking for him in the first place I don't know." Cordelia muttered then stopped. "Hey, look." She said. The two men came from behind and looked at where Cordelia was pointing the light. "Blood." She said. She then got up and aimed her flashlight down. The blood made a trail. "Look." She pointed. The streak of red made it's way out to the street, where it stopped suddenly. "Somebody took him." Wesley said. "Let's go after the demon." "Wait a minute! He's gone, someone or something took him away, don't you think we should go look for him?" Cordelia asked. He whirled around. "How? There's no trace of him anywhere. All we see is the blood leading out to the street. We don't know where he is, he's going to have to figure that out himself. The demon might've already killed someone else. We have to get there." "He's right." Wesley said silently. "The demon is our priority now." Cordelia didn't agree but she saw logic where they were pointing it out. "Now we have to stop for more weapons. This guy's not tiny, and he's got big teeth." "Weapons. Instead of shopping for boots, it's weapons. Yay." Cordelia followed the others out. 

"Do you have any idea what the plan is?" Cordelia asked Wesley. "Well, I don't know about Wes here, but I was thinking that we go in, do some recon, hack some demon, and if we can, get out alive." "Don't be so pessimistic. We'll simply see if he's there and hope he doesn't rip our limbs out." Wesley drove on in Angel's convertible. "You know, I wonder how he got this car. He doesn't work." Cordelia said. They approached the alleyway behind the fast food place and got out. "All right. Showtime." He gave both Wesley and Cordelia their weapons and they sighed. "Maybe I should just wait in the car. You know, get away girl. I could drive you guys away." "Sorry, but we need you to go inside the Wendy's in case." Wesley said. Cordelia's eyes grew big. "In case what?" "in case the demon comes by and we're not hacking it to death." He said, handing Cordelia a crossbow. "And that would be helpful…how? It's afraid of pastel coloring on the booths?" "Light. It has a dislike of light." He said. "Hey, I've been doing my learnin." "So I wait by the door and let you guys in if the demon happens to be not so fruity and fuzzy mood." Cordelia nodded. "Got it." 

"On the count of three." Wesley whispered after Cordelia went inside the restaurant. "Hi, can I wait by your door and open it for my friends when they're getting pummeled by a liver and onions sucking demon who lives behind your building in a dumpster?" Cordelia mumbled to herself. She instead opted for the less obvious question and asked where the bathroom was. "Ew." She looked down at the once-pink gum that was now attached to her shoe. She looked behind her and found the back door. She stood by it and put her ear to the door, hoping that there was nothing sticky there and also to listen to the commotion outside. "Take that and that and that!" Wesley huffed as he slammed his axe into the demon. 


End file.
